Sunday, December 29, 2013

A male reader sent me an email a few weeks ago that I included below (selectively edited to make it more succinct and more in line with the points I want to make):

I am currently a student in Provo, and I am very active in my dating life. I go on about 3 (dates) a week ........This is NOT easy......... I am from California, and the girls act different over there. What I don't understand is why women (here) don't ever have the guts to approach guys first. Why do I have to be the one to initiate every conversation? Are they that insecure about themselves that they couldn't handle the rejection?........ I'm just getting gassed out.......It's almost like very girl around here has decided that destiny says that Eternal Prince Charming is going to find them, talk to them, get their number, text them first, call them first, make all the dating plans, and then pay for it, and there is nothing that they are ever going to have to do in order to make it happen...

Just kidding. Chill out, CHILLLL OUT!!! The social timidity of girls in Provo is easily explained, Mr. SickofMomornGirls almost answers his own question in the email. Before we go there though, I have to admit, the idea of hot girls coming up to me and getting my number (more that they already do) does sound pretty amazing. Almost as amazing as whatever this Korean guy is about to eat:

Mmmmmm Korean food. Anyways, why don't Provo girls ever take the initiative in all this stuff? Because as Mr.SickofMomogirls points out, initiating all that stuff "is NOT easy". Plus Mr.SOMG and thousands of other boys in Provo are very active in their dating lives and doing all the initiating (which of course is just following orders we hear at every dating fireside).

You see, girls like squirrels. I mean, girls are like squirrels. If you start feeding a squirrel nuts, its not going to bother getting its own nuts. Because gathering nuts is no walk in the park (did you know the reason parks are full of squirrels is because it was fashionable in the 1800's to stock parks with squirrels for entertainment purposes? Bust out that nugget on your next date) So these squirrels/girls lose their ability to to gather their own nuts and we are enabling them! Its un-democratic!

In summary, initiating all the dating stuff is hard and because there are scores of boys willing to initiate everything for girls, they have little incentive to initiate anything themselves. Generally the only reason girls would aggressively initiate anything is if they are desperate, but of course if Mr. Somg is anything like me, he is not after these desperate ones. He wants the girls that are already getting asked out fairly often (the fed squirrels). The girls not getting asked on dates are also less likely to get a positive result from their aggression. Which of course leads them to believe that aggression is a bad idea.

So either a girl gets asked on plenty dates and doesn't need to do the initiating, or she doesn't get asked out much and is under the impression that aggressive initiating doesn't work.

Mr. Sick of Mormon Girls, don't look now, but it appears you are up a creek. In related news, I have a Swedish friend who is a total knockout (way to reinforce stereotypes right?) and she says that in Sweden the girls are the aggressors. So there's that.

Sunday, December 15, 2013

A common piece of dating advice goes like this: When you are on a
date, make sure you ask the other person a good amount of questions. No one
likes a person that only talks about themselves, but everyone likes a person who is
interested in them. If you are asking someone questions, you are expressing your interest in them. A good question will make your date feel good about themselves and you, not to mention keep the conversation flowing smoothly. Get it? Asking questions = Great Dater. It's that simple.

Personally I learned this lesson early on and have over the years developed a list of go-to first date questions that are guaranteed to make sparks fly and flies spark. Some of my best questions:

"Why is blue?"

"How many children do you want and when do you want them? Like do you want to wait, or are you ready to start having them right away? cuz I really want to start a family right away you know?"

"Is it just me or was that girl who just walked by smoking hot?"

"Would you rather eat a dead baby, or hit a live one?"

"Are STDs a dealbreaker for you? I mean if they are already mostly treated and are barely noticeable? Just hypothetically speaking of course hahah...haha"

Conversation gold right there. GOLD I TELL YOU!

Some people have not mastered the fine art of The Question. For example, this weekend I went to a show with this cute little thing. This girl (who admittedly is on the young side) is now known in my apartment as the Inquisitor. I have never been asked so many questions on a date. She was relentless. It was all the standard questions, but it was ALL the standard questions, in rapid fire. It made the conversation pretty painful. At the same time, I could tell she is a super shy girl that was just nervous (and who could blame her considering my status as a Hottie McHotterson). Of course that just made the whole thing cute (I'm not exactly sure why).

Sunday, December 8, 2013

There are 5 stages to my ward optimism. And when I say ward optimism I mean how optimistic I am that I will find some lovin in my ward, if you know what I mean. Over time my view on the dating prospects in my ward change, as depicted in the chart below:

Stage 1 "The honeymoon": Optimism is at an all time high. Plenty of attractive girls to go around. Really with this many cute girls, there is no way I don't connect with at least one lass (which luckily is all one needs this century of the church). Give me enough at-bats and I'll hit a home run. Also prominent at this stage is the "novelty" effect, all the girls are new to me and so they actually seem more cute, plus they still have that new girl smell!

Stage 2 "The its-actually-a-lot-worse-than-I-thought-it-was": Slowly (and by that I mean usually within a few hours) the optimism starts to fade. Why? Because I find out this cute girl has a boyfriend, that cute girl is actually pretty freaking annoying, another cute girl actually has gnarly teeth that I just can't get over, and so on. Soon the whole "Plenty of attractive girls to go around" turns into "there is 1 truly attractive truly single girl left and 20 guys are making a run at her".

Stage 3 "All Is Lost": Things are looking pretty bleak. All the girls I was initially interested in are either taken or no longer interesting. I start to write off the ward and stop trying to find girls in the ward to date.

Stage 4 "On Second Thought": At this point I get a little desperate and start giving some girls a second look. And you know what? Ms.Gnarly teeth's gnarly teeth are starting to grow on me a little bit. The girl I thought was crazy is getting a little endearing now. Boredom and loneliness have an amazing ability to lower standards enough to refill the dating pool! Yay!?

Stage 5 "Screw it, I'm out of here" : All time low. This is where its close to the end of semester/year/whatever and I am leaving the ward/city anyways so I just give up on everything. No hope remains. Its useless to date with only 2 weeks left! I need at least 3 to know if she's The One!

I think I am entering Stage 4 right now, which is actually mildly exciting.

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Something I've struggled with in college how to treat girls. I know how they want to be treated, and I know how they deserve to be treated. And it turns out those are two completely different things.

When I was in 7th grade I had my
first-too-legit-to-quit puppy love crush on a girl. Naturally I wanted the girl
to like me and in my simple young mind I hatched a plan. I would be super nice
to this girl and then she would like me. It all made so much sense, why does
anyone like anybody else? Because that person is nice to them right?

If Bob is nice to me, compliments me, shares his snack pack
with me and all that jazz, I’m going like Bob. I’m cool with Bob. That Bob guy is alright with me. So If I like
Suzy, I just have to be super nice to her. Super logical right? Yes.

The problem my young mind did not comprehend, was that this
was romance, and it had its own set of logic. Yeah Suzy liked me for sharing my snack pack with her, but not quite
in the way I had hoped. Thus came to pass the first friendzoning of my life.

I have since learned that girls do not want to be treated
super nicely. They want their minds to get mixed up. Horrible I know. Trust me,
it pains me every time I have to do the mixing, but it pains me even more when
I see my fellow man still in the simplistic and totally ineffective
do-anything-to-please-the-girl mode.

Basically it comes to down to value. We have a really hard
time valuing ourselves, and so we use other people to do it for us. Very much
like that game where you have cards on your forehead and you have to ask other
people questions to figure out who you are. This clip will refresh your memory:

We take cues from other people as to what our value is. In dating, if someone is too nice or too easy (i.e guy
tries too hard or girl gives it up to soon (“it” just being just kissing in
mormon world of course, get your mind out of the gutter!), then we instinctively
know that we could do better. It’s like deep down we think, “I don’t know what
my value is, but I sure as heck know it’s higher than poor sap’s”. Likewise we
sometimes we think someone is out of our league (or more valuable than us)
because of cues we take from them or other people.

In dating the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle. Imagine
a doctor’s scale (if you will allow me to mix metaphors here for a second).
When there is too much weight, the pointer drops down. When there isn’t enough
weight, the pointer shoots up. But when it’s right around the true value, its
bobs up and down for a second before finally resting on correct number.

That bobbing up and down is key. To translate that “bobbing” to dating, that’s
thinking everything is great, then doubting yourself. That’s having a great date with someone
you’re interested in, then seeing him/her flirt with other girls/guys.
That’s waiting forever for that person to text, and then finally getting a
flirty text in response. Those highs and lows, the near misses and miraculous
wins, we get off on that crap. It’s addicting and deep down it makes us like
someone the way little Suzy never liked me (the tramp, haha no really she’s a
sweet girl who has a third kid on the way by now).

Having to work for it and sweat it out at times makes us
think that we are at the right value, like we earned it.Everything is in balance.

Of course, just like the scale eventually has to settle,
relationships in the long run have to settle for things to work out. I don’t
think people would tolerate the bobbing forever, at some point there has to be
some confidence and comfort. But in the short run….there needs to be some
bobbing up and down to keep people interested. Nice guys are horrible at
bobbing.